


My Experimental Game

by voleuse



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>This was never the way I planned--not my intention</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Experimental Game

**Author's Note:**

> Set after 1.09. Title and summary adapted from Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl."

  
_I don't have a stutter. I pretended to have one in sixth grade because I didn't want to give a speech on the Missouri Compromise. I was really shy and it made people think I was weird, so they left me alone. And it wasn't until I joined glee club that I realized how much I was missing. I don't want to push people away anymore._

  
Artie didn't talk to her for a week after the kiss, and while she felt guilty for two days after her confession, on the third day, she got angry. She'd been hanging with Artie since their first biology lab, when he'd turned blue holding his breath against the formaldehyde, and she'd had to slice and dice the frog all by herself.  
She'd never talked much, even without the stutter, and if the only reason he was friends with her was _because_ of the stutter, then, well. Fuck him.  
A week after the kiss, she sent him a text message, four words in total: _Stop being an asshole_.

  
The next day, as she walked into the music room, she heard Mercedes ask if anybody else had noticed the stutter's disappearance. Tina froze in the doorway, palms growing sweaty against the strap of her messenger bag.  
Artie cleared his throat. "Maybe she just feels more comfortable around everybody now."  
Mercedes snorted. "I don't think that's how stutters actually work."  
"What," Artie asked, "you're, like, an expert on the subject?" He stared Mercedes down, and she finally shrugged.  
"Whatever." She folded her arms. "You were friends with her first."  
"Hi, Tina," Kurt chirped, his voice pitched higher than normal.  
Tina stepped fully into the room, rubbing her palms against her jeans. "Hey, guys."  
Mercedes looked at her, then raised her eyebrows at Artie. He turned his hands palms up.  
"Hey, Tina." He smiled at her. "What's up?"  
She slung her bag over the back of an empty chair. "I hate math," she opined.  
"True that," Mercedes replied, and she and Kurt launched into a dissection of Mr. Park's latest hair travesty.  
Tina shot a smile at Artie, and he smiled back, almost shy. She touched his shoulder, and then Rachel tromped in making proclamations, and then rehearsal began.

  
After rehearsal, Mr. Schuester handed Tina a piece of sheet music. "When you have some free time."  
"This is a solo," Tina noted. She closed her eyes, felt that flutter of panic low in her belly. "I-I-I'm not ready."  
"Tina." Mr. Schuester reached out, clasped her shoulder for half a second. "I think you are." He backed away, rolling the other sheets in his hands. "Give it a try. I think you'll surprise yourself."  
Tina nodded as he left, biting her lip. She liked the song. She _loved_ the song, but she could never sing it as well as the others, could never stand in front of all those people and have them watch her--  
"Girl," Mercedes said, reading over her shoulder, "that's totally in your range." She grasped a corner of the sheet music. "That one note might be a little high, but," she paused, winked at Tina, "we can work on that."  
"W-w-we," Tina stopped. Gathered her breath. "We can?"  
"Absolutely," Mercedes replied. "Now, come on. Kurt is in serious need of a latte."  
"Yeah?" Tina craned her neck, and saw Artie awkwardly patting Kurt on the arm, muttering about his lost solo _yet again_.  
Mercedes laced her arm around Tina's. "Yeah."  
Tina grinned. "Then so am I."


End file.
